At Gamescom 2024, NVIDIA is bringing several announcements – but before you get too excited, RTX 50 series is not one of them. Now that your expectations are managed, here’s what’s new from Team Green.
First Game With NVIDIA ACE-Powered NPCs
Since last year, the GPU giant has demonstrated AI-powered NPCs via NVIDIA ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine), which in turn features several components wrapped in what’s called a NIM (NVIDIA Inference Microservice) that makes it work.
The latest update introduces the new Nemotron-4 4B Instruct SLM (small language model) that allows the conversation to be processed on-device, which enables low-latency processing and resulting in a more natural conversation between the player and the NPC. Mecha BREAK will be the first game to use ACE, which includes components like OpenAI Whisper ASR, Nemotron-4 4B Instruct SLM and Audio2Face-3D from NVIDIA, and ElevenLabs TTS (text-to-speech).
G-SYNC Now Integrated, G-SYNC Pulsar Launches
While the rumors are flying around that NVIDIA is working with MediaTek to produce an ARM-based SoC for PCs, the two chipmakers have already collaborated on several projects before. Now, Team Green is teaming up with the Taiwanese chipmaker to develop display scalers with integrated G-SYNC, negating the use of discrete G-SYNC modules. This makes it on par with AMD’s FreeSync solution that skips a discrete chip to save cost, which is one of the benefits that NVIDIA is quoting as well.
G-SYNC Pulsar meanwhile will see its first lineup of monitors launching soon. The feature was first showcased in CES 2024, which utilizes variable strobing rate that increases the effective motion clarity to over 1000Hz, NVIDIA claims. This solves the problem of existing ULMB technologies that do not work with variable refresh rates, which means you can now have your cake and eat it for competitive games.
Three monitors will be launching soon, including AOC AGON PRO AG276QSG2, Acer Predator XB273U F5, and ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQNR. These monitors all feature 1440p 360Hz panels with G-SYNC Pulsar and HDR support.
Other Announcements
On the less technical side of things, NVIDIA has also announced that starting August 22, GeForce NOW users can now be automatically signed into Xbox accounts once it is linked. Players’ game library from either fully purchased titles or Xbox/PC Game Pass will be synced to their GeForce NOW account. The cloud gaming library has officially reached 2,000 games, it noted.
The chipmaker has also announced a new RTX-remastered title, Half Life 2 RTX. The remaster development is led by Orbifold Studios, which features over 100 contributing artists to remaster Nova Prospekt, one of the most iconic levels of the game. The remaster, which is demonstrated in the Gamescom show floor, will feature full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, plus new assets and models that feature an 8x increase in 4K textures and 25x the geometric detail from the original game release two decades ago.
Finally, more games now come with RTX, DLSS and Reflex support, including the newly-released Black Myth: Wukong, Star Wars Outlaws, Final Fantasy XVI, Dune: Awakening, and more.
Pokdepinion: G-SYNC Pulsar will be a big deal for competitive gaming for sure.
